Growing Up
by KibaCanLickMe
Summary: Sasuke meets Hanabi under less than stellar circumstances and she gets under his skin like no one before.


**Title: Growing Up  
Fandom: Naruto  
Characters: Hanabi & Sasuke  
Prompt: Young  
Word Count: 2,221  
Rating: K  
Warnings/Spoilers: I think none.  
Summary: Sasuke grows up and falls in love.**

Night had come, and Hanabi slept; her features soft and peaceful in the muted lighting of the darkened bedroom, as they could never be in her waking hours. In the time of the sun duty weighed heavy upon her slender Hyuga shoulders and if words like peaceful or soft could be used to describe her they would also be used to destroy her. There is no room in the head family of the Hyuga clan for soft or peaceful individuals, and Hanabi has earned her title the hard way. Those who doubt that need only look at Hinata's juin marred forehead to know what happens to soft and peaceful Hyuga's, so Hanabi is never that in the daylight. Though at night, in sleep, Hanabi is free of the confines of her family and able to relax enough for peace to find its way onto her face.

It is during these nighttime hours that Uchiha Sasuke likes to watch her best. For at home, behind the protective walls of the Uchiha manor, Hanabi is finally able to breathe. In the light of the moon her aristocratically refined features become unearthly; her dreamy pale skin is smooth and silky to the touch; practically glowing in the dark. The delicate slope of her nose is hidden from his view by a lock of her midnight black hair that has fallen across her face haphazardly, something that would never occur in the sunlight when she must be perfect and structured in every way. Her mouth however is devoid of obstruction. Perfectly plum lips are parted in an ever so pleasing pout as she breathes delicately through her mouth. Sometimes she snores, but that's not something he will ever share, with her or anyone else, that secret is all for him. Because she is exquisite and in this lighting, in this moment her ethereal beauty could be divine; she is practically celestial, and he needs a reminder that she is in fact a human being. Looking at her here, sleeping soundly in his bed, she is so small and dainty and so utterly breathtakingly beautiful, he can't help but want her all to himself. Without reminders that she sometimes snores and frequently cracks her knuckles, he can forget that she isn't heaven sent. But then again, maybe she is; sent down from heaven just for him, his own personal angel, even if Sasuke doesn't think heaven has much use for him.

Most people as they age wish for a return to their youth, but Sasuke is not most people, and he does not. In his youth he was a barely contained, simmering ball of immense anger and rage that boiled and festered until it blew up in a geyser of betrayal and delusion. In what he now knows t be and acknowledges as his biggest regret Sasuke, in his foolish youth, threw away everything that should have mattered to him in a foolish bid to call himself the Avenger; he had no time for Konoha and love. He chocks that up to the stupidity of youth, and he never wants to go back there. It is the woman lying next to him that was able to make him see that, and for it, he will be eternally grateful. He never wants to be young again, for in his youth he knew nothing of his angel.

When he thinks of how he met her, and the circumstances under which they fell in love, he knows without a doubt that Hanabi is in fact an angel, for nobody else would be able to fall for the likes of him. Heir to the prestigious Hyuga, most hated rival clan to Uchiha Madara, she was abducted by Akatsuki and held prisoner in an attempt to trade her for Naruto and the nine-tailed fox. There she was tortured for information on her family blood line limit, the Byakugan; the one dojutsu the ancient Uchiha still had the good sense to fear. Through it all she remained silent and strong, refusing to say even one word that could compromise her family, clan, or village. Sasuke had been assigned as her guardian after Madara determined no amount of beating would get her to open up and her own kekkei genkai protected her from the genjutsu mind games the leader was so fond of. It signaled the beginning of the end for the Avenger; because somewhere in that mess Hyuga Hanabi found and brought back Uchiha Sasuke.

At first she didn't speak at all, not even to him, which was fine with him. The Avenger cared little for conversation, especially with Konoha's weak trash. Gradually she opened up enough to spit on him when he attempted to feed her after she'd refused food for a week. Other than that, she offered him no other signs of emotion, and the Avenger took an interest, it was not often he came across someone as distant and detached as himself.

Then Zetsu was killed. Hyuga Neji had paralyzed than ripped apart the plant man piece by piece trying to get the location of his much loved cousin. Madara's fury had been palpable; a raging hurricane of violence, and Hanabi took the brunt of the storm. When she was returned to Sasuke's care she'd been a bruised and bloody mess. In an uncharacteristic show of compassion he'd washed her and bandaged her major injuries, even used his limited medical jutsu to heal her minor wounds. Barely conscious, she'd peered at him through swollen eye sockets; confusion evident in her gaze.

"Why do you stay here when you can go home?" she'd whispered. "You don't have to be a monster."

"You don't know anything!" the Avenger had snapped.

"I know Konoha is home; yours and mine, and I know you'll be forgiven. Isn't that enough?"

"Shut up!" he'd shouted, and left her in her cell, but the damage had been done. The death of the Avenger had begun. With only four sentences she had planted a seed in the long dead garden of Uchiha Sasuke's heart. Would he really be forgiven? Could he really go home?

From that point on she continued to water that little seed, granted it was erratically, but it was consistent enough to grow a seedling. And when she said, "I know what it's like to feel like the expectations of your family are weighting you down and that you'll never be able to do what they want," he'd answered her, despite the Avenger saying not to.

"My family is dead. I don't have one."

"All the more reason you couldn't refuse to avenge them, right? Because what could a murdered family want more than vengeance from their only survivor?"

He hadn't said anything to that, he couldn't. What was there to say when she'd gotten it so right? She must have known because along with that little bit of water she'd thrown on some fertilizer.

"I can't say I knew your family, or what they would want, but even my frigid family wishes for my happiness, and wants me to come home. So I'm pretty sure that yours is hoping one day you'll be happy too. So tell me Sasuke-_kun_ are you happy here?"

The Avenger knew he wasn't, and did his best to keep Sasuke away from her. That girl would be his death knell and after so many years as the ruler of that body, the Avenger had no intention of giving it up. He assigned underlings to tend to her, and kept himself far from her poignant words and heart softening claims, but fate it seemed had other things in store for Uchiha Sasuke and the Avenger was not part of them. Madara decided if he couldn't break the willful Hyuga he would add her to his organization. What could be worse for Konoha than its destruction at the hands of its founding families? He ordered Sasuke to see about bringing her around.

Madara's fatal mistake was in believing that the hurt and hatred he'd spent years cultivating to create the Avenger would be stronger than memories of love and acceptance, of bright blue eyes and rose colored hair, which the tiny Konoha kunoichi dredged up from the depths of Uchiha Sasuke's soul. The thing about all Konoha shinobi that Madara forgot, probably because he was from a time before Konoha, and that other hidden villages chide them for, is that they all believe, even when it's obvious to everyone else that it's not true, that those born to Konoha are Konoha shinobi until they die. Konoha, as far as any Leaf ninja will tell you, mean love. Unconditional, passionate, total, and complete love; with no strings attached. It's the reason why Jiraiya never could bring himself to believe Orochimaru wasn't coming back, why Anko's return was met with open arms, why Neji was forgiven the almost fatal attack on his cousin, and the legendary Tsunade held the title of Hokage despite once abandoning her village. Every Konoha ninja believes in the inherent goodness of its' residents, sometimes to their detriment, but even the aloof and callous Hyuga fall prey to this belief, and Hyuga Hanabi was no exception. She believed deep down in her soul that Uchiha Sasuke still existed somewhere, buried far beneath the cruel visage of the Avenger, and he _would_ bring her home.

After days of her constant refusal to join Akatsuki the Avenger was at his wits end, preferring to kill her over spending one more minute trying to convince her to join him in the ranks. She remained steadfast; she would not become a traitor to her village.

"How can you continue to be so loyal to a country that has abandoned you like trash?" he spat at her.

"I don't see it that way," she replied.

"Pfft..." he laughed at her cruelly. "I don't see how you can see it any other way. They left you here to rot when all they had to do was hand over the Kyubi. They chose a demon over you, didn't they?"

"No, they chose Konoha and life, over me. And that is something I can be proud of. Had I been able to tell them anything I would have asked them to do exactly what they did. Naruto's life is no less worthy than my own; perhaps it is even worth more. If Akatsuki has the Kyubi, life as we know it is over. Konoha is done for, and all that I love and cherish will be destroyed, so why would I wish for that?"

The Avenger eyed her with disdain, "So you're just going to sit here and refuse our offer over and over again until I am forced to kill you? Is that your great and wonderful plan?"

"No," she said defiantly. "I know you won't kill me, because I know Uchiha Sasuke is going to save me."

At this he'd practically snorted, "Really? I'm going to save you?"

"No, not you, but Sasuke will."

"Uchiha Sasuke is dead! There is only me," the avenger sneered.

Opalescent eyes blinked up at him from the stone ground she sat on and knowingly hardened in his direction, she tossed her hair back haughtily as only a Hyuga could, and smashed the final nail into the Avenger's coffin.

"I know that isn't true, and as soon as he wakes up, Sasuke is going to take me home, back to our precious people, where we'll be loved as if none of this has ever happened."

He'd stormed out of the room then; young and stupid and full of hate. But she'd been right, and Uchiha Sasuke woke himself up in the middle of the night and grew the hell up. He dragged her from her sleep in the Akatsuki fortress to bring her home where they both belonged. Where shining green eyes and faded whiskers met him with warm accepting arms, and a wise white haired genius crinkled mismatched eyes in a smile that said, "It's about time you woke up Uchiha Sasuke, Konoha missed you."

Once they returned to the village he didn't see her for months. He was too busy taking missed exams to rise in the ranks, cleaning up his old homestead, and reacquainting himself with friends he'd thought would have written him off ages ago, but once more Konoha had proven him wrong. Accepted back into his hometown's kind and loving embrace, Sasuke found a life he hadn't dared hope for and he knew she was the reason why. When Neji told him Hanabi wished him good luck on his jonin exam his heart had uncharacteristically raced while his stomach filled with uncomfortable butterflies and he'd known she was the one for him. Now all he had to do was convince her of it, contrary to what one would think, helping to keep her locked up and tortured was not all forgiven the second he took her out of there.

Months of persistence eventually paid off as he doggedly pursued her and eventually wooed the Hyuga ice princess into accepting a date with the one-time avenger. The rest as they say is history. Uchiha Sasuke married his angel and loved her with all of his heart, and he never wishes to be young again, growing up was a gift for which he would be eternally grateful.


End file.
